


Seek and Ye Shall...

by Amoris



Series: (Almost) Forgotten [2]
Category: Tin Man (2007)
Genre: F/M, Post-Canon, Romance, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-31
Updated: 2013-03-31
Packaged: 2017-12-07 02:55:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/743368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amoris/pseuds/Amoris
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Echoes of the past speak of a lost and (almost) forgotten love, and the difference between what was and what is.</p>
<p>A Tin Man Challenge fic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Seek and Ye Shall...

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted to FF.net and LJ on 10.11.09
> 
> Written for Tin Man Challenge, 9A ("Scavenger Hunt")

The days in Finaqua were eternal ones. The whir of grasshoppers in the fields could extend for hours, one long and endless hum; the faint redolence of the marshes past the maze could linger in the meadows on the stillest afternoon while DG lay, slowly turning herself into a suns-baked husk.

She stayed here because she could stretch out in the high, dry grasses and hide. While she hid, she drew. On her stomach with the suns beating down on her back, she chronicled the days as she saw them, watching through clear-sky eyes; Cain's pattern of brood and prowl, her sister's slow opening, her parents' delicate moth-wing romance, and Glitch's small rediscoveries of himself.

It was the latter that intrigued her most, filled her pages.

She tried to capture it with stark black pencil, that glow he would carry in his eyes when he managed to hold onto a memory long enough to seek her out, that beautiful clarity in his features instead of bemused complacency.

It was never anything particularly illuminating; the damage was unrepairable and permanent, no way getting around it, so why worry? Don't look so sad, DG, I'm not...

_Really._

One afternoon, months after this first, heartbreaking news, DG pulled herself up from the ground, leaving her impression in the meadow grass. It was a slow and aimless walk back to the palace, the kind that Glitch specialized in. She practised alone so that with him, she never interrupted, never grew bored or impatient.

She took a path that wound its lazy way around the lake, sweeping toward the gazebo as most paths around the lake and woods seemed to do. She walked carefully, watching the ground for the smooth, round stones she and her sister had once upon a time coveted. She might have missed the most perfect stone anyway, distracted and off in thought as she was... until there! Gleaming in the dirt, not a stone, but a...

"Hmm," DG said, bending to pick up the glass disc. It caught the waning afternoon light, tossing prismatic beams into her eyes.

She knew it took magic to sear memories into the glass discs, the kind of alchemic mastery of microcosms that could be achieved through study and sacrifice. Holding it up to the light revealed no secrets. She wondered if her natural magic would allow her to read it, this bit of science and magic fired into one.

She closed her eyes and levelled her breathing. It was almost instantaneous, a loud rush in her ears and her mind was overtaken by the memory of another. She was thrown into a sepia-toned world where the focus was softer, the light dimmer, the sounds quieted.

" _You shouldn't draw so much attention to yourself,"_ a dark and serious boy said. He was laying on his back on the gazebo floor, his hands behind his head and his gangly legs stretched out. On the swing sat a girl, dark hair braided down her back. Neither could have been more than twelve. _"It reflects badly on you, you know."_

The girl laughed, unconcerned. _"What care you for how I seem to others?"_

The memory released her, and DG was left gasping for air. She turned and stared hard at the gazebo, as unassuming as it ever was, its view unchanged since the restoration of Finaqua. The swing had been rehung since then, and she was reminded of the girl perched on it, and the boy completely trusting as she swung back and forth over his head. Her long skirt had brushed over his chest.

DG shook her head, pocketed the disc, and carried her sketchbook back to the palace.

Three days later, she found the second disc completely by accident; her heart leapt to see it half-buried in the silted lake bottom, where the shore was overgrown with bright purple marsh lilies.

" _I know this colour,"_ the boy said, wading in with pants rolled to the knee. The aged light of the memory made him pale. He plucked the marsh lily and held it up to the girl.

After this, DG began to keep an eye out for the vibrant catches of light that signalled another lost piece of the tale. She would find them in the most beautiful, if not most remote, corners of the estate; places often haunted with memories of herself and Az as girls. She would spend whole days with her eyes trained to the ground; when she caught hell later on from her mother or Cain, her mind would be with the boy and girl. Always her mind went back to the gazebo, the lazy swing and the caress of her skirt.

The discs collected as weeks passed. Whether found in wood ( _"These trees are as ancient as the land we stand on."_ ), or field ( _"Five more minutes, please. Don't make me go back yet."_ ), or maze ( _"Don't be silly, the shrubbery is not laughing at you."_ ), the memories told a story of peace, adoration, and friendship. Something familiar called to DG, something that always brought her back to the gazebo.

She wandered there on days when all the searching through meadow and maze turned up nothing. The dull echo of her feet on the platform comforted her; the creak of the swing as it carried her weight lulled her. One afternoon, as the suns were sinking ever closer to the mountains, streaking the sky with blazes of colour, she gave herself a gentle push. She closed her eyes and leaned back, imagining a dark haired and quiet companion lounging beneath her...

Her eyes popped open as she stopped herself. She slid off the swing, to her knees on the platform. Without hesitation, she stretched out. The wood was warm against her back as she stared up first into the beams above, and then closer, at the smooth, white bottom of the swing. She ran her finger over the letters carved into the wood.

 

**A + L**


End file.
